In Think Like a Freak, the authors of Freakonomics, Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner offer to retrain our brain. The central thesis of the book is that we need to think small to tackle some of the world's biggest problems, piece by piece. Big problems, they say: ... are by their nature really hard to solve for a variety of reasons. One is they're large and therefore they include a lot of people and therefore they include a lot of crossed and often mangled and perverse incentives. But also a big problem -- when you think about a big problem... Read more →

Diego Rodriguez is a Principal of international design and consulting firm IDEO. For the past 18 months he has been creating new ventures @IDEOFutures where the firm looks to marry entrepreneurship and design. IDEO has a long history and track record of innovation. The company's founder, David Kelley, has been examining the question of how to build creative confidence and overcome the fear of judgment throughout his career. He believes that by leveraging a process with “guided mastery” and through “self-efficacy” individuals and teams can build creative confidence. As they gain experience, people learn to think about themselves differently --... Read more →

Really creative people look at problems through a different lens, they often reframe the problem says Tina Seelig, executive director of Stanford University’s Technology Ventures Program. For example, instead of asking for a conclusion -- what is the sum of 5 + 5? They would look at the equation by asking what two numbers add up to 10? She says: Often the answer is baked into the question you ask, so if you don't question the questions you ask, you're not going to come up with innovative solutions. Framing and reframing problems is a good way to increase our imagination,... Read more →

In On Writing. A Memoir of the Craft Stephen King says “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There's no way around these two things that I'm aware of, no shortcut.” We may not want to become full time writers, however more and more of our work product relies on the ability to write well. I have a secret reserve of good writers I turn to for inspiration. When I get stuck and what used to come easy and flow right out of me and... Read more →

One thing Nicolas Tesla, Richard Branson,Tony Stark, and all great titans of industry have in common is this: they were able to identify rules that don’t exist and had the courage to break them, says Jason Kotecki in Penguins Can't Fly: +39 Other Rules That Don't Exist: History is filled with examples of those who profited greatly by dispensing with so-called “rules”: @henryford: Thou shalt manufacture thy goods one at a time. #notarule. @waltdisney: Audiences shalt not sit though a feature-length animated movie. #notarule @browniewise: House parties are no place for selling. #tupperware #notarule @stevejobs: Computers shalt be beige. #notarule... Read more →

More often than we might think, we find new paths out of everyday experiences says Julie Burstein. Being open for that experience that might change us is the first thing we need to embrace: The best way to learn about anything is through stories, and so I want to tell you a story about work and play and about four aspects of life that we need to embrace in order for our own creativity to flourish. The first embrace is something that we think, “Oh, this is very easy,” but it's actually getting harder, and that's paying attention to the... Read more →

How does an established franchise relaunch itself to appeal to an audience whose taste has evolved? The secret history of the ultimate Marvel traces the success of the new series to a Hail Mary maneuver, an experiment: A reboot is a delicate thing. When a once-profitable franchise of characters becomes stale, outdated, or overly complex, there will always be voices calling for the slate to be wiped clean: to take the characters back to their basics, retell their origin stories, make them contemporary. But all too often, those rebooting efforts are laughable, pandering failures. Ultimate Marvel was the rare exception.... Read more →

In Yes, And: How Improvisation Reverses "No, But" Thinking and Improves Creativity and Collaboration The Second City Kelly Leonard and Tom Yorton say that: We are at our happiest and most successful when we are working as improvisers. When we are fiercely following the elements of improvisation, we generate ideas both quickly and efficiently; we're more engaged with out coworkers; our interactions with clients become richer or more long-standing; we weather rough storms with more aplomb, and we don't work burdened by fear of failure. When we are in full improviser mode, we become better leaders and better followers; likewise,... Read more →

Along with Apollo 13, Splash, Parenthood, The Da Vinci Code, Frost/Nixon, J. Edgar and more, Brian Grazer produced A Beautiful Mind, a story directed by Ron Howard -- his business partner -- and interpreted by Russel Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, and Paul Bethany. The movie won 4 Academy Awards. In A Curious Mind, written with Charles Fishman, Grazer reveals how he got started meeting with people from diverse backgrounds to have open-ended conversations about their lives and work. Early in his career, he learned that to broaden his horizons, he needed to escape the Hollywood bubble: “I have to feed my... Read more →

The preparation for today's speaking event at #dareconfUSA spanned more than 12 weeks. We developed the talks as a team -- Meredith Noble, Sharon Bautista, Hannah du Plessis, and Jonathan Kahn and I -- we each worked to find our voice. What I mean when I think about finding your voice is working in a way that is true to who you are. Work is an expression of self, and if it is not true to it, there is no joy in the doing. Finding the child in you, letting curiosity guide you in solving problems, and tapping into love... Read more →